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On December 4, the Knight Commission unveiled a database comparing spending on academics and athletics at NCAA Division I institutions. You can access the database here: Link

The database covers the years 2005 through 2011 (and adjusts for inflation).

I wouldn’t want to make a definitive statement based on these numbers, in part because…well, I’ll let the Commission explain:

Comparisons between institutions are possible, but some institutions interpret the NCAA financial reporting rules slightly differently despite efforts by the NCAA staff working with the National Association of College and University Business Officers to standardize the definitions and reporting. NCAA legislation requires that the financial reports be subject to agreed-upon procedures conducted by a “qualified independent accountant who is not a staff member of the institution.” Each institution’s president or chancellor is required to certify the financial report before it is submitted to the NCAA.

It’s good to have this kind of information available, however.

(Note: all the schools in the database are public colleges and universities. Private school numbers are, uh, private.)

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I put together a couple of spreadsheets of my own, based on this data. The first is a listing of state-supported schools that play football at the FCS level, and includes academic spending per student, athletic spending on a per-athlete basis, and coaching salaries. Link

The other spreadsheet lists state-supported D-1 schools that don’t play varsity football. Link

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Some observations, mostly from The Citadel’s perspective…

– Among FCS public schools, The Citadel was one of only two schools to have had spending on a per-athlete basis decline from 2005 to 2011, falling 11%. The only other one of the 80 schools listed to have shown a decline in spending on a per-athlete basis was Morgan State (-6%). FCS schools collectively increased per-athlete spending by 47% from 2005-11.

Note: two other schools (Missouri State and Idaho State) also had declines in this category, but those numbers were clearly based on certain accounting irregularities — for instance, Missouri State’s listed spending per athlete in 2005 was over $3.5 million. Thus, I am not counting them as schools with reduced per-athlete spending.

(Other categories also had occasional obvious outliers, and there are also schools for which the database has incomplete information.)

Other schools of interest in the category of per-athlete spending include (all percentages are increases):

There are a couple of things worth pointing out here. One is that because the most recent update is from 2011, obviously the move of some schools from FCS to FBS football doesn’t show in these numbers (not to mention Charlotte, which started playing football in 2013).

Also, increased spending doesn’t indicate the amount of total spending. Old Dominion spent over $67,000 per athlete in FY 2011, while Mississippi Valley State spent about $50K less on average.

The Citadel spent $31K per athlete in 2011, just behind Appalachian State ($33K) and Georgia Southern ($32K), and ahead of VMI ($26K). Coastal Carolina spent $47K per athlete; Morgan State, $36K; and South Carolina State, also $36K.

Among non-football schools, College of Charleston spent $35K per athlete in 2011; UNC-Greensboro, $51K; East Tennessee State, $54K; and Winthrop, $42K.

– SEC schools spent on average $160K per athlete in 2011 (up 65%).

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The amount of money expended for coach’s salaries at The Citadel increased 68% from 2005 to 2011 (total for 2011: $2.4 million).

However, The Citadel’s increase in coach’s salaries per athlete over the 2005-11 time period was only 1%, despite the jump in overall allocated funds for coaches. In contrast, the FCS average for coach’s salaries per athlete was 51%.

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To address football specifically, The Citadel has increased its football spending on a per-athlete basis by 22.5% from 2007 to 2011 (the database did not have 2005-06 numbers for the school). That is in line with the FCS median average over the same time frame (20.9%). In terms of raw numbers, The Citadel spent more money per athlete in 2011 ($53,807) than the FCS median ($36,134).

If you take out scholarship expense considerations, however, The Citadel’s increase in football spending on a per-athlete basis from 2007-11 was only 2%; the FCS median was 14%. That may be telling, though the difference if you only account for scholarship players is not quite as large (7% to 16%, with The Citadel spending more than the FCS median by almost $5K per player).

Football coaching salaries on a per-scholarship player basis were higher for The Citadel than the FCS median. In 2011, the school averaged $13,243 in coach’s salary per scholly player, an increase of 68% from 2005. The FCS average over the same time period was an increase of 42%, with a median per scholarship player of $10,366 in coaching salaries.

In 2011, The Citadel paid $2.2 million in principal/interest on athletic facilities. This was, to say the least, a whole lot more than the FCS median (which was just over $200K).

The total outstanding debt for athletic facilities in 2011 at The Citadel was $17.7 million. That is ten times the FCS median.

$17.7 million seems like a lot (actually, it is a lot). On the other hand, it pales in comparison to Appalachian State’s $49.4 million in athletic facilities debt. A few other schools in this category:

The total outstanding debt for all facilities at The Citadel in 2011 (presumably including those designated for athletics) was $48.8 million, which was actually a decline of over $8 million from 2009.

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What do all these stats mean? That’s hard to say. There are caveats on top of caveats.

I’ve written about expenses before invarious contexts, but I’m still not sure how to evaluate some of these numbers. What can I say, I’m an unfrozen caveman blogger. All of these statistics frighten and confuse me.

I think that perhaps the takeaway from The Citadel’s point of view may be comparing the numbers of fellow public schools with what isn’t listed in the database — namely, the spending by private institutions. It is increasingly clear that the military college has to act as a private school does in terms of fundraising and recruiting.

The Citadel is always going to be much smaller than most other public universities (in terms of undergraduate enrollment, etc.). While I think that is a good thing, it provides unique challenges for the school as a whole and the department of athletics in particular.

Duty, honor, and respect are priceless concepts — but there are still bills to pay.